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HP 9000 series 340 file transfers

I am resurrecting an old HP64000 (non-HPUX) embedded application for modification. I need to be able to transfer files from the HP64000 across the HPIB to the HP9000 series 340.

In the past I have been able to do this by connecting an HPIB cable between the HP64000 and the HP 9000 (specifically the HP 98624A HPIB card in the HP 9000) and issuing the "transfer -rsfxa" HP64000filename HP9000filename command. I am now getting a warning message after about

30 seconds that limits have been exceeded. I have checked the switch settings within the HP64000 I/O card and the HP64000 I/O bus cable. I have also run the I/O performance verification tests on the HP64000 to confirm HP64000 I/O subsystem operation.

On the HP 9000 side, I see that the HPIB card is recognized by the system on bootup. It has the expected select code.

When the command is issued, there is a line of text that gets displayed on the HP9000 that announces that the transfer is being attempted. The the warning messages appears 20-30 seconds later.

I am at a lost as to what else I need to do. I would appreciate hearing from anyone with any ideas. I have only a short time left to get this to work or the whole project will be cancelled.

Reply to
dukedombro
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What o/s or software are you running on the hp9000? From my HP catalog it appears that a non HP-UX controller for the 64000 runs either RMB or Pascal.

FWIW, we have RMB running on an hp9000/320 and also have Pascal. I have transferred many files (binary and ascii) using the serial port and kermit on the 9000. Please let me know if I can help.

Regards,

Michael

Reply to
msg

A user manual might help

I have a bunch of these in storage but they will be impossible to locate in the short term

Andrew

Reply to
Andrew Tweddle

Also

formatting link

Andrew

Reply to
Andrew Tweddle

Hi Michael - The HP9000/340 is running uder HPUX version 8

HP had a proprietary operating system for the HP64000 workstation. These workstations were fairly common during the 1980's. The one I'm working with was manufactured in 1986.

msg wrote:

Reply to
dukedombro

Thanks for the references. I have been using these references over the last few months and believe it or not, I was able to locate many of the manuals here. Regards, Jim

Andrew Tweddle wrote:

Reply to
dukedombro

I am an ex-HP Apps Engineer who joined the company in the heyday of the

64000. What a wonderful machine! I still have some 64000 'crocks' and hard drives. I fire them up every 6 months or so, just to make sure they work. I also have a few HP-UX workstations, both 68K and Risc. They haven't been fired up in a while.

The last time I tried to do any transfers from the 64000 to another system, I used RS-232. You can actually run as fast as 56KBaud, going from the 64000 to HP-UX. You can't go past 9600 the other direction. You'll need a full RS-232 cable because the 64000 uses HW flow control, in addition to XON/XOFF.

If you can get the RS-232 working, and log into HP-UX, using the terminal program on the 64000, you can initiate transfers using approximately the same command. I don't remember the exact options, though. The best thing to do is create a file on the 64000 that lists the files you want to transfer, then edit that into a transfer command file. Transfer the command file, then use the command file to transfer the rest of the files, unattended. I've transferred megabytes that way.

There's only thing you have to watch for. Every time there's any kind of error, the last 'packet' gets retransmitted. Unfortunately, an error counter also gets incremented. After a number of errors, the transfer stops. It's easy to recover, though. Just figure out which files transferred, remove those line from the transfer command file and restart the transfer.

Overall, this might be a LOT easier to get going than the HPIB. There a zillion things that could be wrong with your HPIB and diagnosing is not fot the fainthearted. RS-232 is much easier to understand.

If you don't care too much about errors, and it's text, you can use a program on a PC to just copy from RS-232 to a file, then on the 64000, copy a file to RS-232. It'll also run up to 56K baud.

Good Luck

RB

Reply to
Rube Bumpkin

Klaus, Dave & Andrew -

The situation with the HP9000 to HP64000 has been resolved. Two factors contributed to the lack of communications. First, the HP64000's HPIB address had to be changed such that it did not conflict with the HPIB address of the HP98624A card on the HP9000. Second, the cable length was too long (4 meters). Since both systems are pretty old now, noise becomes more of an issue. Correcting the HPIB address and shortening the cable (2 meters) corrected the problem. Instrumental in debugging this problem was the use of the csib command. The csib command has an option for reporting levels (default is 0). By incrementing the reporting level, we could see that the HP9000 was attempting to connect with the HP64000 but the HP64000 was not responding. We could also see when noise was getting in the way after partial communications was established.

THANKS EVERYONE FOR YOUR SUGGESTIONS!!! Jim

P.S. Dave - I believe > dukedombro wrote:

Reply to
dukedombro

Rube -

I did find the solution to the HPIB. Two issues were in the way. First, the HPIB address of the HP64000 conflicted with a HPIB address on the HP9000. Change the HPIB address of the HP64000 cleared this up. Next was the cable being used (a new one) was too long (4 meters). With these old systems, they have become more sensitive to noise. Shortening the cable to 2 meters reduced the noise. The reporting feature of the csib command was critical to diagnosing the problem.

THANKS FOR YOUR SUGGESTION!! Jim

Rube Bumpk> > I am resurrecting an old HP64000 (non-HPUX) embedded application for

Reply to
dukedombro

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